


Inheritance

by SuddenlyOranges (FamRoyalty)



Series: Forerunners [1]
Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: No Beta- we all suffer, ONI is a necessary evil, Short Stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-10-27 07:29:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17762456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FamRoyalty/pseuds/SuddenlyOranges
Summary: In a desperate last act, three lone forerunners make a choice that will affect them thousands of years after the destruction of their people.





	1. Legacy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "After exhausting every other strategic option, my creators activated the rings. They and all additional sentient life within three radii of the galactic center, died, as planned."— 343 Guilty Spark.

He didn't save his brothers.

He didn't save the Forerunners from dying, didn't even know it was an imminent threat. A  _possibility_. His brother's and sisters were at war, yes, it all had been  _bad,_ but every warrior he crossed paths with – from the reserves in stations who responded to the initial call to the lifeworkers who studied and worked without break– made it sound like the Forerunners were going to make a full recovery. Was going to be  _fine._

_But then was then, now is now._

The first twenty-four hours afterward were a blur _._ Retinence-Bears-Prominence felt numb and distant, like he was dream-walking, struggling to find his breathing beneath the violent flood of stimuli that was simply the result of the rest of the world continuing on like it _didn't even care – didn't even **notice**._

The Stars still spun, and the gases still formed _. There is nothing he can do, his ancilla whispered, maybe shouted, he wants to hear, but the distant words clawed at him._

Tempest was always there; his one constant, providing a strong presence to lean on and taking care of him in a way that had only ever been his parents job. Rentinence was dead on his feet, too tired to resist when the warrior-servant pushed him into a bed, and Tempest told him to sleep, assured him they'd decide what to do after he got some rest.

There was just no way to know for sure.

That's a thought that kept being restless, spent tossing and turning and reliving those last few hours with his people, how they would survive now. Some argued, then they yelled; a glass was broken at some point during the conversation, thrown in desperation.

Their world burned.

Rentinence's heart twisted painfully as he watched the holographic feed of the planet where his people once resided, the fire climb the tall mountains, snapping and popping as it chewed away at the wood as it reached toward the final day of the burning.

 He felt like a piece of him had been ripped out with ragged claws that cut deep trenches in his chest, leaving him broken that would never truly heal.  
  
Like his planet, but instead this rock was being cleansed and buried, the mighty structures of his people echoed in one final statement as it was buried under the dust of history.

Some Forerunner ships were left drifting, the hulks of metal floating without care. But they too would be gone, destroyed over time, because time was the only thing nothing could ever touch.  
  
Those few souls that had survived, would not last long. Maybe the Iso-Didact did manage to fix the Domain. Maybe his people did survive, out of the reaches of this universe, away from the melted tomb that was left behind.

He didn't think as highly of the Humans like others, before and after the war. The space faring species already weak-minded, as they brought the galaxy to ruins and the Flood to their shores.  The disease that spread faster than their ships, and consume the stars into oblivion.

 This was the part he didn't remember, didn't know. Didn't _want_ to know. Neither time nor distancel could water down the visceral memory of what the Flood had done to them, couldn't erase the cutting and carving and ripping. The less he knew about what came after, the better.  
  
_Was it really the human's fault? For bringing the Parasite to their shores? Or was it their own undoing?_  
  
He didn't find any peace that night.

 The interior of the base was mostly grey, the floor covered in the geometric designs that were found on Forerunner constructs. Or what remained.  
  
The firing of the Halos, a mighty power, and a  last testament of the once-mighty Forerunners, almost signaled the last power struggle before darkness.Their worlds were now cleansed from the Parasite, their trillions of worlds, just lost. It was quite depressing. The mighty Forerunners now dead, to all context.  
  
He wondered if anyone would remember them. But of course the few days were getting to him, he spent time thinking, not building nor thinking of a design to impress the council. What was there to build?   
  
It was best forgotten.  
  
But Infinity-Brings-Twisted-Fate thought of something different. As other Forerunners disbanded into the stars, to die with some dignity, others settled on lesser worlds, the trio remained. Manipulators, living close together, they always managed to find a way to each other.   
  
But that was the past, now he and Tempest are in Infinity's "building room". A disorganized wide room, that the ceiling is high up to reach the stars. There, not many seen what exactly he was doing there for the past weeks, the only reason they didn't go into Exile with the rest of their race.  
  
"Is there a particular reason why we're," he kicked the bolt of metal away from his path, "In the most unorganized place of this rock?" Tempest shared his ideation.

The Engineer stepped toward and gestures to the floating spheres before him. And if he's posture made anything, wildly and rapid he explained, "They are capable of travel, endless energy if done right, and if I'm right, we can _live_." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Tell me, why wake up now?"
> 
>  
> 
> Trust me, Dr. [RETRACTED] I didn't.
> 
>  
> 
> "Is there anymore Forerunners out there?"
> 
>  
> 
> Maybe, I don't know, maybe they are all dead.


	2. Hymn For the Missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tell me a story, please.
> 
> Ok, have I told you of how the Forerunners died?

He knew he was dead.

 Tempest, knew of the dangers the war like any others, and he knew what he was feeling. It was a gut feeling, honed by decades of experience learning the hard way t,o take immediate, careful note of his surroundings.  
  
_A Better Future?_  
  
"This could immortalize us, let us sleep until we're needed. Why die now? Why not in fifty years? _Hundred_?"  _Why live at all_? Immortality is something, somewhere, a Forerunner always thought about once in their lifetime. But that didn't matter, no.  
  
He was denied a warrior's death.   
  
The idea of "Immortality" had always been just that – an idea. A concept that held no more significance to him than a human would -- but were never really anything more than a theory, a concept pondered over.

The only immortality he wanted was to be remembered in the Domain, where others would study his tactics and convey them into their own, a piece of himself living on, even after his death.

Yet, Infinity claimed that he found a way to get just a concept into the realms of reality. Nonsense. Anger clawed at his chest, a beating drum that would not be solved, he wanted to die at the hands of war, where he was made to do. _This is a pitiful way to die._

He paused a moment dragging a hand down his face then resting his chin on his palm. He let his eyes glide across the room he'd taken refuge in for the last handful of months. Does it matter? He'd all but dead here, so let it come.

He released an impatient huff, and let his hand drop down the hang between his knees. He wasn't sure what he was still doing here. He'd stuck around for a few months after the Forerunners had . . . after. He toyed around with the thought of returning to the Domain, to the remaining Forerunners, but still being surrounded by the others made that hard. Even if he could get around that, fighting just didn't feel right, he felt like there was something else he needed to be doing, he just didn't know what that was.

 And that's what worried him. The bloodlust that many would get a thrill of, now he couldn't keep himself from wondering around, expecting a different result each time.  
  
"My Family had been working on it for millennia, always working on it." And now the idea came to life. And Tempest didn't know how to feel about it. Waking up in a different world, with little to no idea what it would bring. Instead, he sat down, away from the pulsing light, and just. . .  
  
Yet, Reticence took such leap of faith.  
  
"Very well, who will wake us?"  
  
"I will of course!" The happy-childish voice replied, as Tempest almost shot the thing who would dare to startle him. A monitor, floating from behind Infinity. _Did he make the damn thing?_  
  
He didn't fool himself into believing that when they woke up, a new, better Future waited for them. No, they deserved to be forgotten, if not bedeviled for even existing.  
  
He threw an uneasy look at Infinity, taking the message, Infinity stepped forward. "Monitor Glendora-09, you'll be our protector, you'll guard this place until you're very last thought. You'll wake us if only the direst situation. Understood?" The Monitor kept promising and chattering, filling Tempest's head with useless talk.  
  
His ancilla, already in some form of quiet sleep, too seemed annoyed by the Monitor.  
  
"What of our ancilla? The Domain? We can't just leave them," Infinity, shook his head if merely talking to an uneducated child, just to some context he was.  
  
He was not there when the first exchanged fire began against the Parasite. He was a young manipulator who only heard rumors at the time. And now, he's a Warrior watching his people killing themselves for the better of the galaxy.  
  
"Your ancilla, as well as Reticence will be alright. No matter what happens out there, we'll be safe. When we wake, it will be like no time as past,"  Reassurance wasn't what Tempest was looking for, there is nothing left to protect. The ashes of his people have been swept under, and now there is nothing but the fire under his feet.

"Very well, I'll place my life in your hands."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Why are you here?"
> 
>  
> 
> Not to talk to you.
> 
>  
> 
> "Please try to be cooperative."
> 
>  
> 
> Why? Because you claim these false testaments?! 
> 
>  
> 
> "I assure you, they are all true."
> 
>  
> 
> Maybe for you.


	3. Remembrance

Infinity knew the conscience of his people were clear when firing the Halo. They were doing justice to those lost in the fighting of wars and diseases. 

His mind, however, was not.

Infinity-Brings-Twisted-Fate stood silently taking the view of the spheres floating gently from the ground. The world silent and it simply grew in white noise. This was it. There was nothing else he could do, the worlds he and others before him, constructed. Building and designing were lost to history and time, just so three pathetic Forerunners could be --  
  
_Forgotten._  
  
But not if he could help it, even if he died, there was still hope that someone out there, in years to come would grow curious and Maybe _hamanunes_  would be back into the stars.  
  
Infinity snored, with such aggressive gene manipulation the Life workers have done, it would take thousands of generations for them to take their former glory. They would not be alive by then.

 This is end.

Just a poetic way, to sleep away to their wary bones, for the galaxy is to be better off. The irony never failed to lighten the mood, they fought so rigorously, so viciously, to keep the root alive to find out they were the poison.  
  
He now stood coldly in the empty whiteness of the sphere, even Tempest leaned forward, to act as interest interested. His armor, the one he held in the highest regard, now felt claustrophobic, a trap. It reminded him of a cryptum, actually.   
  
As Infinity tapped the holographic display in a nearby terminal, he couldn't help but feel abnormal, if something was beginning to unfold.   
  
And as Retinence-Bears-Prominence stood in the prototype he began to feel the warm sensation grow as the door closed. Leaving him in darkness. His last thoughts, scattered and mangled, the door closed with a hiss, He wondered if Infinity knew what he was doing, praying he wasn't going to die a lab rat.

The toy soldier for a dead race stood in the parrael to the other one, wondering if this incorrigible act could be forgiven under the eyes of those who would deem this as cowardice act of escaping reality.

And as the last door hissed shut, the monitor silently stood obediently at his side, satisfied by simply floating there. What an odd little thing.

"Very well then, Monitor Glendora-09, you'll only leave this place if the situation calls for it. Wake us when the time as run out.'' With that, the Forerunner stepped into the stepping stone of his last steps.  
  
He was supposed to be afraid, their world would be gone in a blink and no one would know. He snored, the icy feeling running through his blood vessels as he closed his eyes, the world around him warped and changed the colors turning into a blob of a dull color, and in the end, he regretted nothing.  
  
As his conscious left him, the world he knew slipped through the fingers of time as he slept, the Monitor happily watched, monitoring with a playful tune for the next thousand years.  
  
The world outside the timeless place, untouched by the events that changed and forged the stars around them. But it wasn't much left as the War turned their eyes towards the dormant gods under the stars.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Did you know you were going to wake up?"
> 
> No, I intended to wake up, maybe after life has reached Tier 2, at most.
> 
> "Tier 2? Could you elaborate?"
> 
> Every species is somewhere in their Tiers, even you Humans.
> 
> "And the Forerunners? Where were they?" 
> 
> We were once kings.


	4. [RETRACTED]

[RETRACTED] _to ONI 4th [RETRACTED]_

**URGENT - PRIORITY ALPHA - URGENT**

**CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET EYES ONLY**

_Encryption code 8392-4933-28944._

_Location_

_**WARNING** \- UNATHOURIZED DISCLOSURE OF FILE CONTENTS PUNISHABLE BY DEATH AS PER UNSC CODE 110-23B - **WARNING**_

_[RETRACTED]_

_Request for mission assets to be studied and dissected granted. Apply pressure if needed. Do not harm. Repeating: Do Not Harm. These assets are top priority, abandoned mission if the security of the assets are breached._

_Signing out_

_TRANSMISSION END_

 


End file.
